Magazine Targets The South

July 5, 1986|By Susan G. Strother of The Sentinel Staff

Southern Magazine, a regional monthly magazine to be published in Little Rock, Ark., will debut in October with one-fifth of its paid subscribers based in North and Central Florida, its publisher says.

Alan Leveritt, whose Arkansas Writer's Project Inc. already publishes three other magazines, said early studies indicate that Florida readers will account for 40,000 of the 200,000 subscribers expected to receive the first issue. The Florida circulation does not include South Florida, where the magazine will not be available; studies showed that residents there would not support it.

Overall, paid circulation in the 13-state area is expected to climb by 50,000 annually, Leveritt said, resulting in an anticipated 450,000 subscribers within five years.

The magazine will use free-lance writers, including well-known authors like Willie Morris and Ellen Gilchrist, for regular features on Southern politics, business, sports and design, said Linton Weeks, Southern Magazine's editor. ''This will not be a magazine of the old South or the New South,'' he said, ''but of the real South.''

The magazine, which will cost about $6.75 million to launch and support in its early years, will sell at newsstands for $2 a copy. More than 6 million households in the magazine's circulation area will be mailed an introductory subscription offer of $7.95 for 12 issues.

Leveritt said the demographic studies indicated that the magazine will attract a readership with an average household income of $60,000 and a net worth of more than $500,000. Southern Magazine's readership also will be split evenly between men and women, unlike Southern Living and Southern Accents, regional magazines aimed at women.

The new magazine's advertising rates -- $6,480 for a full-page, one-time, four-color ad -- are cheaper than those offered by regional editions of Time and Newsweek but more expensive than those of Southern Living, based on the cost of reaching 1,000 readers, Leveritt said.